"One of Microsoft's hottest new profit centers is a smartphone platform you've definitely heard of: Android. Google's Linux-based mobile operating system is a favorite target for Microsoft's patent attorneys, who are suing numerous Android vendors and just today announced that another manufacturer has agreed to write checks to Microsoft every time it ships an Android device. Microsoft's latest target is Wistron Corp., which has signed a patent agreement 'that provides broad coverage under Microsoft's patent portfolio for Wistron's tablets, mobile phones, e-readers and other consumer devices running the Android or Chrome platform', Microsoft announced." That's the reality we live in, folks. This is at least as criminal - if not more so - than Microsoft's monopoly abuse late last century. After the Nortel crap, it's completely left the black helicopter camp for me: Microsoft, Apple, and several others are working together to fight Android the only way they know how: with underhand mafia tactics. Absolutely sickening. Hey Anonymous, are you listening? YES I WENT THERE.

So you think legally licencing your patents is more criminal that violating patents? Is it ok for Google to violate patents just because they're late in the game or because they feel like it? Does patent violation become more acceptable because Android is open source? Patents are patents and must be adhered to. Whether you like it or not, Microsoft are playing by the rules and using their IP to their advantage. My company own quite a few patents for software we've developed, and you can be sure that we'd go after anyone who violated those patents without paying. I bet you'd do exactly the same.

Android is based on Linux and a managed language called Dalvik which uses Java syntax. Linux in turn is a written-from-scratch re-implementation of POSIX specifications (so it uses no UNIX code).

Microsoft technology is a VMS work-alike. If anything, .NET is a Java rip-off (and not the other way around).

They are chalk and cheese. Microsoft did not invent Android technology, and they did not write any of the code.

The only thing that Microsoft have is a large patent portfolio which they can pretend that Android violates here and there. It is too costly for smaller firms to contest Microsoft claims of infringement when Microsoft comes knocking on their door. It is cheaper to just pay Microsoft off.

This is extortion, pure and simple.

The very best indication of this lies in the fact that Microsoft refuses to name the patents it claims Android infringes.

Microsoft technology is a VMS work-alike. If anything, .NET is a Java rip-off (and not the other way around).

Minor Correction ... .NET is an innovation over the JVM.

The originally the JVM interpreted bytecode ... the CLR does JIT compilation on bytecode.

To address these issues the CLR uses an IL compiler. The CLR uses JIT compilers to compile the IL code into native code. In Java the byte code is interpreted by a Virtual Machine (JVM). This interpretation caused Java applications to run extremely slow. The introduction of JIT in JVM improved the execution speed. In the CLR Microsoft has eliminated the virtual machine step.

It seems they copied ideas off of one another. It doesn't appear to be as black and white as you claim.

I find it strange that you are pro GPL aka sharing when it comes to code, but when someone implements the same idea for their own platform and improves it ... it is suddenly a problem when it involves Microsoft.

You almost make it sound like Sun should have patented the JVM ... a software patent with such a comment.

Uh... No? The JVM had JIT compilation long before .NET implemented it.

The originally the JVM interpreted bytecode ... the CLR does JIT compilation on bytecode.

The original one did, yes. But JIT was implemented in Java before .NET was even released.

You almost make it sound like Sun should have patented the JVM ... a software patent with such a comment.

Sun did patent a lot of things from the JVM. But Sun used their patent portfolio primarily defensively. Sun never liked patents, but they learned a hard lesson after IBM nearly put them out of business by suing them over a generic RISC patent that basically said "If you make it simpler, it will go faster". This RISC patent, btw, is proof that hardware patents can be abused just like software patents. So those who support hardware patents but not software parents are hypocrites.

Oracle, of course, did not share Sun's philosophy of defensive software patents. And once they inherited Sun's patent portfolio, they are started using the patents offensively.